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Germany Calls For a Ban On Combustion Engine Cars By 2030 (engadget.com)
Germany gave the world the internal combustion engine, and now it is prepping to ban the amazing invention in the country. The country's federal council has passed a resolution to ban the ICE starting in 2030. From an Engadget report:The country's Bundesrat (federal council) has passed a resolution calling for a ban on new internal combustion engine cars by 2030. From then on, you'd have to buy a zero-emissions vehicle, whether it's electric or running on a hydrogen fuel cell. This isn't legally binding, but the Bundesrat is asking the European Commission to implement the ban across the European Union... and when German regulations tend to shape EU policy, there's a chance that might happen. The council also wants the European Commission to review its taxation policies and their effect on the "stimulation of emission-free mobility." Just what that means isn't clear. It could involve stronger tax incentives for buying zero-emissions cars, but it could also involve eliminating tax breaks for diesel cars in EU states. Automakers are already worried that tougher emission standards could kill diesels -- remove the low cost of ownership and it'd only hasten their demise.
Have they thought of the implications this has on the trucking industry? Have they thought what this might do to low-income or fixed-income individuals who can't afford a car and suddenly left without transportation? Where is the electricity or energy to create hydrogen fuel going to come from now that they've banned nuclear and don't want fossil fuels? What will happen to the jobs of independent gasoline retailers and distributors and other people involved in that part of the economy? And what about the total cost of ownership for a vehicle with comparable range?
I understand that technology has lots of room to improve in this timeframe, but we need substantially better technology all around in order to make it viable to replace current combustion engines and we need to bring the full impact on the economy and on people in particular before we require that absolutely no vehicles are allowed to have combustion engines any more.
Folks, chill. The ban is about emissions not ICEs. If you have an emission neutral ICE, you're good. Also they don't want to ban them entirely, they just want to ban new ones after 2030. Your ICE car from 2029 (if those still exist) is still allowed on the streets after 2030.
I see a good chance for this law to be mostly cosmetic if it passes Bundesrat, Bundestag and perhaps European Parlament.
If the experts are any bit of right, most new cars will be electric by then anyway.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
All the vehicles thus far called zero emissions simply shift their emissions elsewhere. Operating an EV emits plenty of pollution, it's just that the power plants which generate the electricity get blamed for emitting it instead of the owners who drive the vehicles. Even if you're getting your electricity 100% from renewables, there's still the emissions during construction, refining of the materials needed to build PV cells and wind turbines, maintenance, etc. Same goes for hydrogen-powered vehicles - their emissions come predominantly from the process of generating the hydrogen needed to power them, which from all the calculations I've seen thus far exceed the emissions from ICEs.
Right now, environmental policy is being driven by popularity and emotion. It needs to be replaced with a rational, mathematical approach. If you choose to drive a car from location x to location y, it will need to use a certain amount of energy. Generating that energy with an ICE creates a certain amount of emitted pollutants. Generating it with renewables creates a different amount and different types of pollutants. Same goes for steam, coal, natural gas, nuclear, etc. You don't get to draw a black box around just the car, blithely ignore what's needed to create what goes into the box, then irrationally proclaim that you've created a zero emissions vehicle.
And no, you cannot claim your EV is zero emissions because you installed solar panels on your house which you then use to recharge your EV. That's a gross misunderstanding of opportunity cost. The correct comparison in that case is how much emissions your activities would generate if you use the solar panels to recharge your EV, vs if you used the solar panels to offset your household electricity use and used a different type of car. The only way the solar panels can show up only on the EV side of the comparison is if you would not have installed solar panels if you didn't get the EV. That is almost never the case.
For the same reason, EVs are being powered almost 100% by coal and gas plants right now. The electrical demand prior to EVs was being supplied by coal, gas, nuclear, and renewables. Nuclear has not increased. We're increasing renewables pretty much as fast as we can, but that increase would've happened even if EVs didn't exist. So the extra demand for electricity caused by EVs is being filled by the most flexible electricity generation sources we have right now - coal and gas.
Stop trying to think of energy in terms of us (eco-car owners) vs them (dirty polluting ICE owners). Start thinking of it in terms of world-wide energy production and use.
For people on low incomes, EVs should be better. Prices on new ones will reach parity with ICE soon, and used ones will be more reliable and cheaper to run. There are fewer things to go wrong, no spark plugs, no exhausts, no emissions to worry about, no lubricants or liquids beyond the windscreen washer fluid. Even the brake pads get less wear.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Citizen I warn you not to use abusive and divisive language again! The official term for rape by newcomers is intercultural exchange. Alternatively you can refer to this process as an enriching of the culture of the host country with diverse and colorful habits from afar.
If we catch you doing your hate-speech again a reeducation center will be the least that you can expect.
Binding laws are inherently undemocratic. Voters today should not be able to impose policies and costs on future citizens against their will.
Which is exactly what polluting the environment does, actually. It imposes disastrous costs and policies on future generations while raking in the benefits in the present, and while not spending the much smaller amount necessary to prevent a much larger cost later on.
When binding laws have been allowed, they have generally been disastrous, with current voters giving themselves lots of goodies and pushing the cost off on future generations. This is what happened in Detroit.
Binding referenda you mean? Because most laws are binding, that's why they're laws. And the policy of mandating electric cars in no way pushes the cost off to future generations: it's just 13 years from now. I certainly hope to be still alive then! So current voters are apparently mandating something that they themselves have to pay for to avoid incurring a heavy toll on their kids. I applaud that.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
It's astonishing to see the success of one little car from a recently tiny American upstart having such an incredible influence on the world. Just that one car being so great has the largest union of nations in the world talking about banning all other cars. It's just very impressive. I suppose the Model S will go down as similar in influence to the Model T. Funny how similar the names are. I wonder if Elon concievably had that in mind.
If I really want a roadtrip I can also hire the car for the roadtrip
This stupid argument comes up every time range is mentioned. You *won't* be able to hire a long-range car for your vacation because everyone else is also trying to hire a car for their vacation. If the rental companies keep enough cars for 90% of the population that only gets used twice a year they'll have to raise rates far beyond what you are prepared to pay.
It's a stupid argument, and you should feel silly for using it!
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
I can't say I've every hired a car for vacation or dove a long road trip. Your fallacy is that everyone has an identical vacation in an identical area at the same time.
THAT is silly.